Surely the modern family Christmas card is a printscreen of the various family members on a group Skype.
My beautiful family
In less than two weeks, I will be seeing these lovely faces in person, when I fly to New York for a weekend to visit with them all.
Happy birthday to me!
There are many reasons why I shouldn’t like While You Were Sleeping. The entire plot is based on the thinnest of misunderstandings, even by rom com standards. Peter is the victim of a creepy, prolonged mind game by Saul and Lucy. No way anyone would believe that someone engaged to fancypants Peter wouldn’t have a giant rock on her ring finger, which should have stopped the plot dead in its tracks right there. Anyone who has lived in Chicago for even a month would know northside Peter supports the Cubs and not the White Sox. And yet, it’s one of my favorite movies.
Is this sight scary or heartwarming? Depends on your tolerance for meandering discussions of Guy Lombardo and Argentinian beef.
The chemistry between Lucy and Jack sparks right away, and any scene with the whole family is gold. Obviously, the movie pushes the idea that half the reason Lucy’s in love with Jack is because she finally has a family she can join. When I was younger, I never believed that Lucy would be as friendless and alone as she’s shown to be, but the more time I’ve spent trying to fit in to new cities, the more I appreciate just how difficult it is to get set up with new friends. And I have the Internet, with its Couchsurfing and Meetup and things, which is more than Lucy had, back in 1995. Lucy makes friends at work, but when your job is sharing a small booth with one other person collecting subway tokens, you don’t meet a lot of people. Besides which, she’s grieving her father, who died just the year before. It’s actually not surprising that she’s so isolated.
Meeting the Callaghans, who are marvelously open and friendly (perhaps a bit too much so, to a strange woman who claims to be engaged to their comatose son), would feel like coming home. And then you get to sit through dinners talked at such cross-purposes that in my family, when things are getting similarly ridiculous and rowdy, someone just yells out, “I never said he was tall!”
Of course it’s a Cinderella tale, and we can’t forget that Lucy would never afford that trip to Florence on her own, while the upper-middle-class Callaghans can shell out for it no problem. But I’m willing to go along with the idea that the real treasure Lucy gains is the love of a family, and their wealth is a nice bonus.
Other great things:
And Elsie has the best answer to “would you like some more wine?” ever. She says, “Oh I don’t drink anymore.” Beat. “I don’t drink any less, either.” For a grandmother like that, you might fake an engagement to a man in a coma, too.
December 24, 2013; East Lansing, MI
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
A final Christmas post for this year. Here’s our lovely tree.
All the lights aglow
Merry Christmas, everyone!
December 5, 2013; East Lansing, Michigan
I have yet to tire of the view from my parents’ kitchen window.
This weekend, I went Christmas tree hunting. Our family friend Diane used to come with us back when the twins and I were kids, and this year my parents and I joined her and her two kids, so we’ve come full circle. It turned out to be a warm day (by which I mean like 42 degrees, fully 10 degrees above freezing), so we were all walking around in coats and scarves and gloves, but no hats. That’s a December heat wave, I tell you what.
Anyway, I could describe the whole tree finding experience, or I could use this as an excuse to re-post my 2011 video about it. Imagine this, minus the snow, plus two adorable kids–including a 7-year-old girl waving a spare tree branch through the air like a superhero’s shield–and you’ve pretty much got my Saturday afternoon.
Also, I must include this photo of the siblings walking into sunlight together, because I almost said “aww” out loud when I took it.
Aww
I’ve seen a lot of “Days of Gratitude” posts on Facebook this month. People post about something they’re grateful for every day up to Thanksgiving, usually with an accompanying photo. I think it’s a great idea, but I haven’t taken part, mostly because I feel like every blog post I’ve written this year has been a gratitude post.
Every day I get to write, which I’m grateful for in the way that most writers are grateful for the chance to write—it’s an aggravation, sometimes nearly impossible, but occasionally totally satisfying. Every day I write about this amazing trip I’ve been on, so every day I’m grateful anew for the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met.
I’ve spent seven months of this year on a trip around the world, gone to the weddings of some of my most beloved people, celebrated my grandmother’s 80th birthday with the whole clan, and published a piece on a major website. It really has been a terrific year, and I’m grateful for every day of it. Can’t wait to see what 2014 brings.
Thankful for the laughs from this year
As Em and Lizzie, my sibling and new sister-in-law, said many times this weekend, it’s been a magical few days. I stood up at the wedding, DJ’ed the reception, partied with family and friends, and constantly felt the love of everyone assembled. You can see lots of photos of the big day if you search #mcfinwedding on social media. Here’s one Em took with my phone in the car on the way to the ceremony. Look at the excitement in his eyes!
The best day
It was an honor and a joy to be at this wedding, and it’ll be days yet before the glow wears off. Apologies for the late post today, but you can see where I might be delayed in the day-to-day at the moment. Back on track tomorrow!
I haven’t actually heard anyone use the phrase “tis the season” here in New Zealand, but that doesn’t mean the country isn’t ready for the Christmas season. Queen Street, the main drag in Auckland, is strung with glittery decorations, shops ring out with pop versions of carols, and one of the department stores has its windows set up with a story of a sheep having adventures with Santa. The first Saturday of the month, the city kicked off the season with a tree lighting and street party, and I went to see what it was like.
Decked-out palm on Franklin Street in Auckland
Franklin Street is a road in the Freemans Bay neighborhood of Auckland that dresses up for Christmas. In the States, we’re used to most neighborhoods decorating their houses in lights for the month of December, but that’s less common here, so the fact that most of Franklin Street does it is notable. The first weekend of December, they throw themselves a street party, and this year it got more notice in the paper and people from all over the city joined in.
Street party
Region-specific decorations
I walked down the street (a giant hill, as most streets in Auckland seem to be), and watched as neighbors mingled on one another’s lawns, drinking glasses of wine and chatting. Families strolled by, the kids oohing and ahhing at the different set-ups. At one point, I stopped to listen to a women’s choir sing a carol, and then joined in for a couple verses of “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
choir + children = Christmas
I can’t get over the tropical Christmas thing
By the time I reached Victoria Park, I was in a festive mood. I joined a group of people I’d met at a CouchSurfing event earlier in the week, and we settled in to watch the tree lighting ceremony. When I say “tree,” I don’t mean anything that you’d find in a forest. Strings of lights come together in the form of a giant pine, and the Telecom sponsors put on a little show to turn the lights on. It was strange to be at an event that was so clearly corporate sponsored, but I guess it does separate church and state more than the city-sponsored tree lighting ceremonies in the States.
Titanium performed their hit song ‘Come on Home.’ Oh, you don’t know Titanium? They’re only Auckland’s biggest boy band! It was great fun watching the tweens in the crowd go crazy for them, even during their insipid version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” While they performed, little kids ran into the old English-style phone booths stationed around the tree, which were labeled “Santa Line,” and called Santa personally, presumably to relay some very specific instructions.
Direct to the North Pole
Then the emcee stepped up on stage, bizarrely clad entirely in Raiders paraphernalia. He informed the crowd that even though this was the fifth year of the Telecom tree, they still hadn’t figured out how to turn the lights on. Kids yelled out practical suggestions like “hit the button” and “try the lever,” but no, no, those wouldn’t do. We’d have to call Santa on the Santa Line and see if he could help. When the emcee informed him that one of the suggestions to turn the tree on had been “get more kids,” Santa said, “well, that could take some time”—naughty Santa! He then informed us that this particular tree operated only on the laughter of children, and just our luck, he’d been practicing some jokes. So he told us some terrible jokes and the audience groaned, and finally the emcee cut him off rather unceremoniously and suggested we all just say “ho ho ho.” It took a few tries, of course, because we had to build suspense, but eventually a bunch of kids piled up on stage, directly under the tree, and shouted “ho ho ho” into it, and it lit right up.
Maybe a whole crowd of kids will make it work
Good job, kids
I hadn’t been to anything so cheesy or family focused in a long while, and I enjoyed it immensely. The kids in the crowd were adorable, and the whole affair was charmingly ramshackle, despite this being a major city. I’m used to the crushing crowds of wintry Chicago during December, and it was refreshing to see this little city’s relaxed approach to the holiday season.
Hurrah for cheesy holiday outings
A rainbow of Christmas cheer
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